The Empty Blogspacehttp://christinabulford.co.uk
of Christina J. BulfordFri, 19 Oct 2018 17:32:20 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.12http://christinabulford.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cropped-Christina-Bulford-Rectangular-Logo-32x32.pngThe Empty Blogspacehttp://christinabulford.co.uk
3232“Intense and fiercely intelligent” – It’s True, It’s True, It’s True – New Dioramahttp://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1109
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1109#respondFri, 19 Oct 2018 17:25:55 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1109When you’re in a gallery, contemplating, let’s say, classical Roman art, do really look at the art? Not just at its subject, at the Gods peering from the clouds, the bosoms of mortal women arranged with white sheets or suggestive fruits but at the postures, the poses? The turn of a head or the tensing of muscles in any one figure could offer an entirely different perspective on a seemingly well worn story. Consider the bathing, unclothed figure of Susanna from Susanna and The Elders (1610) about to be set upon in Gentileschi’s master work, was she asking for it?

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“It’s True, It’s True, It’s True” is a re-staging of the 1612 trial of painter to the pope, Agostino Tassi, for the rape of his young, gifted pupil, Artemisia Gentileschi. She was fifteen at the time. Based on surviving latin court documents, new and Edinburgh festival award winning company, Breach Theatre, have brought a contemporary-English adaptation to the stage. Looking to the past can help us to understand the present, but as we hear Tassi play every trick in the book to try and get off, as we watch the judge himself literally torture Gentileschi to try and break her resolve, the connection here is anger-inducingly close. All she can do is repeat over and over, “It’s true, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true… Because it is”.

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As Gentileschi’s works are recreated for the court in tableau before us (so do not fret if you have not seen the originals!) we discover how her revenge for her wrong was made in her art. Beheadings, rapes and scenes of female retribution became her speciality. Breach imaginatively dramatise outside of the paintings too, depicting the before and afters of each violent scenario. Susanna’s rapists leer at her from artists’ decorators ladders, blood pours out of Holofernes’s severed head as a long red scarf. It’s an intoxicating way to experience her masterpieces that no projection could ever encompass.

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The performances from the three women are all taut and meticulously controlled. Gentileschi, played by Ellice Stevens, maintains an eloquent dignity whilst Kathryn Bond and Harriet Webb weave a web around her as the the judge, the accused and a long string of witnesses.

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It is some superb editing from the Breach team that has seen seven months of trial wound taught into an intense and fiercely intelligent piece of drama, that feels a great deal more expansive than its hour. Scenes are struck through with contemporary music that keeps up the relentless pace. Watching Gentileschi let loose is one of many fist in the air moments.

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Breach have accomplished something astonishing, fusing the past and present in this ancient court room. Pay more attention to the past, but don’t despair – draw from it, they beg us. Get angry. Insist on being heard.

]]>http://christinabulford.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=11090“More to this play, than laughs” – A Funny Thing Happened… – The Finboroughhttp://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1103
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1103#respondThu, 18 Oct 2018 17:47:24 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1103Behind the sickly green medical curtain, two older women lie. Dosed up on painkillers, they are seemingly dead to their surroundings, but their hearts are still beating. The Oncology ward is a suffocating shade of pink and bizarre brightly coloured prints of suggestively arranged flower petals hang above each sleeping head. A young woman sits practicing her “bits”, Karla the aspiring stand up comedian performing to the captive audience of her sleeping mother behind the dividing curtain. Confrontation comes in the form of the brash New Yorker, Don, on the other side, who believes the ward of his dying mother is no place for her vibrator jokes. Is he right? Where is the line between respect for the dead and dying, and seeing the funny side?

Where is the line between respect for the dead and dying, and seeing the funny side?

Halley Feiffer’s writing could not be accused of shying away from the so-called ‘last Taboo’ that is comedy surrounding death. There are plenty of other controversial comedy moments thrown in there for good measure – she is not writing for the easily offended – and this has garnered the play quite a reputation and sell out shows when it debuted in New York earlier this year. It appears the same success has followed it to, and indeed enabled it to come to, the Finborough.

There’s much more to this play however, than laughs. Like some of the best comedy, the laughs lie thinly over bitter truths, truths that we are scared to talk about, exposed by her mordant humour. Our fear of the finality of death. Our unwillingness to address our complex feelings for our mothers. Our shame at our overwhelming sense of being unable to cope.

These lost, grown-up children are imperfectly formed and as their fears spill out, it’s moving, but never spills out onto the overly sentimental. Even crying can be funny, with Halley Feiffer’s wicked way with words and under Bethany Pitts direction. It’s oddly enjoyable in itself to feel the collective uncomfortable feeling in the room when we’re not sure if we ought to laugh or cry. It treads a thin thin line between the two like a sadistic tight rope walker, ducking and twisting for added dramatic effect.

It treads a thin thin line between the two like a sadistic tight rope walker, ducking and twisting for added dramatic effect.

The performance of the night goes to Kristen Milward as Karla’s mother. She captures in an accutely observed way, a difficult mother who can be sanguine one moment and spiteful the next. Death is not easy on anyone involved, but here we see the agony of being left behind by the pillar of stability, and instability, in your life. A mother who wasn’t always a mother to her daughter, “Sometimes I wish she would just die” she bitterly reflects. Feiffer once again doesn’t pull any punches.

Laughter (even the filthy, offensive kind) is presented as a remedy and a healer to us, as sad and imperfect humans. It’s profoundly affecting to see the way cancer eats away at a sense of humour and leaves anger and fear in its place. But it can be replaced – If we can learn to laugh in the face of death.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Gynecologic Oncology Unit At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Of New York City, The Finborough Theatre, October 2 – 27.

Image credit: Photo: Tristram Kenton

]]>http://christinabulford.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=11030“It’s serious fun, and you’ll want to play!” – Skate Hard, Turn Left – BAChttp://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1080
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1080#respondMon, 15 Oct 2018 09:04:35 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1080This isn’t child’s play, this is roller derby; a world of women, a world of different rules, of pushing, shoving, falling down and getting up again.

Four woman, all clad in skates, pads and helmets explain the rules, then rip it up on the BAC’s parquet floor for an hour of wilful, playful unleashing. All with buckets of energy, yells of excitement and brows of sweat.

Heavy on skating, ‘Skate Hard, Turn Left’ also flirts with social and political commentary. The girls, who skate together, also relay tales of the world outside the sports hall. Tales of skipping town, of motherhood, of love and of friendship play out on skates. It’s delightful to see how they bring the physicality of each character to life in the stops, states and swoops the skates allow them. Can you imagine your boss on roller skates? These girls can, to hilarious effect.

Can you imagine your boss on roller skates? These girls can, to hilarious effect.

The reasons behind why women can’t just get on with it like their male counterparts are played out in these scenarios, and ring very close to home. Is it any wonder women still have it so tough in sport? Issues like unequal responsibility for childcare are ebbing away only very slowly, and even debate around women’s temperaments, such as the Serena Williams cartoon and subsequent backlash earlier this year, still continues.

You’re bound to see feelings you recognise flow from these feisty, eight wheeled women. In roller derby, they lose themselves in a world where the normal rules don’t apply. It’s still, they tell us, a mostly female, community run and self funded amateur (“that means no one gets paid”). The importance of female spaces like these is evident as we watch the women work together, play together and help each other up. The narrative is episodical and does not settle at a fixed point. There is no victory, yet, for these women or their sport – but the race is on.

There is no victory, yet, for these women or their sport.

The piece, a bit like the sport, is evidently in its early, doggedly determined stages and I can see the potential for some of these sketches to be expanded out into a wider narrative that lets us get to know each skater a little better. But it’s serious fun, and you’ll want to play!

]]>http://christinabulford.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=10800“A brightly coloured world of ageless wonder” – Wise Children – The Old Vichttp://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1085
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1085#respondThu, 11 Oct 2018 12:26:43 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1085It’s tough to love an adaptation of something you love so much in its original form. It can never hold the intricate details of your own imagination, it can never clutch your heart the way it did at your first encounter, or when you re-turn the pages. Just as well then, that we are taking a look inside Emma Rice’s imagination then perhaps, which is a brightly coloured world of ageless wonder.

I find it quite terrifying that it is 10 years since I first read Angela Carter’s magical, yet dark, novel. Wise Children has the theatre and world of performance running through its core, and so a stage adaptation is not gratuitous, but somewhere this book can feel at home. It adds another dimension when we are no longer readers but a live audience to the songs, dances and curtseys of the effervescent Chance girls. It does so by sacrificing details in place of spectacle but it’s true that on the stage sequins are more enticing than Lyon’s tea shops.

sacrificing details in place of spectacle

It may not contain all the elements I dreamt up, and the plot and cast have been thinned, but see to the tassels fly, the sequins glint and to hear the piano is a real treat to relish. A real joy. To see all the ages of Dora and Nora’s eight decades of life, together on one stage creates a stage picture I never could have imagined. The carnivalesque meets classic storytelling. If you are not familiar with the novel, it may feel like even more of a whirlwind!

“Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people” Nora observes, and there is here before us a menagerie of conflicting emotions. There are no heroes and no villains. The stage is a place where the improbable can be made real, the real made improbable and beneath the delightful bright and colourful dancing singing characters a streak of something nasty that always threatens to bleed though. The adaption for all it’s coloured lights never loses sight of the this. Blood and sweat and wig caps galore.

Blood and sweat and wig caps galore.

It’s a joy, it’s a tragedy. Read the book for the nuances but enjoy the magic that is Emma Rice’s imagination whilst it graces the stage.

8th Oct – 10th Nov, The Old Vic, London

]]>http://christinabulford.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=10850“Brazen and unique” – Wasted – Southwark Playhousehttp://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1096
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1096#respondThu, 20 Sep 2018 12:58:10 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1096Have you ever felt like you were wasting time, or even your life? It might be a comfort to know that some of the most famous people in history felt the same, the Brontes so the new musical ‘Wasted’ goes, were some of them.

There is no riper territory for a new musical than an uphill struggle and the Bronte siblings had one! The girls (Emily’s, Charlotte and lesser known Ann) face the challenges of being a woman in the 19th century on top of being rurally isolated, without anything but basic education, without a mother and poor. Their brother Branwell has further opportunities (Latin tuition, his own studio) but is thrown from the heights of expectation into crippling self doubt. From doubt into drug addition, and with that into obscurity. The girls find the fame Branwell thought was meant for him, but they all handle it differently. It’s a truly heartfelt historical tale, told with punch.

It’s a truly heartfelt historical tale, told with punch.

The beauty of this new musical goes well beyond its subject matter, each performance is brazen and unique and captures the hunger of each sibling in the talents of each vocalist. Charlotte is matriarchal and fierce, Emily is dark and quirky and Ann is charming, and a little naive.

Their voices and their verses are shot through with electric guitars and some frantic beats (the 50/50 split in the band’s genders is noted and welcomed) mics are handheld at all times and entwine their owners. It’s part rock opera, part of theatre, part musical.

It’s part rock opera, part of theatre, part musical.

It’s graduated well from it’s Edinburgh roots into the Large Southwark Playhouse Space. Under Adam Lenson’s direction, the girls are literally climbing the walls to escape their humble Yorkshire beginnings.

As with a large percentage of new musicals, there are snags, but these can be ironed out so that it can see some more (well deserved) time under the spotlight. There is definitely room to trim and/or cut some songs. ‘Goth’, an Emily solo in the second act, feels almost pantomimic, pushing Emily’s strangeness a little too far.

‘Wasted’ is about struggle “Write a word, then a book…” But also about enduring that struggle and coming into a legacy. It’s about making the most of our time, and striking that seemingly impossible balance between living and making art, something we could all use today to make sure we don’t leave our own lives don’t feel ‘wasted’.

6 SEPT – 6 OCT, Southwark Playhouse.

]]>http://christinabulford.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=10960“Not a quiet or comfortable watch” – Pinter at the Pinter: 1 – The Harold Pinter Theatrehttp://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1091
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1091#respondMon, 10 Sep 2018 12:44:49 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1091The second preview of ‘Pinter at the Pinter’ Part 1 went off with a bang at The Harold Pinter Theatre tonight, not something you might have expected from a playwright famous for his pregnant pauses. Pinter’s use of silence on the stage came to define the playwright over his career, considered genius by some, and frustrating or just pretentious by others. One thing this collection presented tonight is not, is quiet.

One thing this collection presented tonight is not, is quiet.

From loud mouthed politicians (one loud mouthed, American, orange and played with relish by John Calshaw), to guards shouting orders, to pain and anguish and pompoms, this collection is Pinter at his most politically as well as audibly vocal. Pinter’s shorter pieces are rarely performed and it is arresting to see such visceral images, from blood spurting in the unspoken scenes of torture in Mountain language, to the quiet moment watching a woman tenderly, sensually, pluck and discard the petals from a single red rose.

arresting.

The stage shifts with ease from prison to living room to doorstep with an admirable slickness. The way the light strikes the steely grey slabs of set, sets the scene. It’s astonishing what can be created from these innocuous grey blocks.

disquieting.

Power, it’s many forms and our human abuse of it upon each other, takes centre stage, as we are confronted by troubles that clearly haven’t gone away and the types of unsavoury characters who just recast themselves at different points in human history. Pinter’s absurdism allows him to be a degree removed from reality, just a fraction in this case. These bleak pieces really could be any time, any place, anywhere and that’s what makes them so fascinating – and more than faintly terrifying. It is not a quiet or comfortable watch, but a disquieting one to mull over in a long and ponderous Pinter pause.

]]>http://christinabulford.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=10910EdFringe: “We ought to laugh at ourselves” – Revelations . -Summerhallhttp://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1073
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1073#respondWed, 22 Aug 2018 21:43:01 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1073There is no end to a story, just a point where we choose to stop, James observes. This means that there can never really be any happy endings, but by opposition that when tragedy strikes, it is never really the end.

it is never really the end.

On a personal note, the end to my ten days of Edinburgh Fringe comes with Revelations as its concluding chapter, and so this acts as a reassuring reminder. I would rather this Revelations anyway, than the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Revelations is the third part in James’s ‘Friendship Circle’ series which began with Team Viking. All three parts were presented together at Vault Festival in London in March of this year, but the themes are expansive enough and the characters realised clearly enough that they can equally be enjoyed in isolation. If you have seen the preceding parts however, you will welcome the return of his friends to his story.

In this part, James becomes a sperm donor for his gay childhood friend and her wife. He explores the notion of faith, and its part in our lives. Even if we consider ourselves secular, he argues, we commit acts of faith every day. We go to the pub as a form of secular communion, we privately and vocally give thanks for the friends and family we have in our lives, we get into metal boxes which can travel at unnatural speeds and trust we’ll get out safely again at our intended destination. There is a bit of faith tucked up in all of these common experiences.

Even if we consider ourselves secular, he argues, we commit acts of faith every day.

We also witness James examine more clearly defined articles of faith, largely with where he left them as a centre piece, at a Christian holiday camp when he was in his teens. Although not a believer in God, he does not attack or dismiss faith – although he does make clear that acts of hate in the name of faith, such as homophobia, are under no circumstances, ever, ok. In a moving moment, audience members are called down to lay hands on him, as Christians he did not know once did in an act of prayer when he was young.

Word has got out now that James is an excellent storyteller, but I’ll join the ever-growing lists and say it again; he is excellent. Besides his little keyboard, mic and loop pedal his voice and a piece of chalk are his only storytelling tools. There is a wonderful and comforting familiarity about his opening line “Hello, I’m James, and I am going to tell you a story…” that makes you feel you are exactly where you need to be and listening, with rapt attention.

Word has got out now that James is an excellent storyteller.

James has grown more confident in his craft since part 1, his musical elements have become more developed (there are rounds and three-part harmonies) and he even has us joining in, but he has maintained his earnest charm. You can’t help but laugh and smile at his silliness, or even at his seriousness. It Is sometimes when we are at our most serious, he candidly observes, that we ought to laugh at ourselves the most.

Sometimes his lines of thought don’t quite gel together, but isn’t that true of real life? Who wants a story that ties up in neat little bows? If you do, this may not be the storyteller for you. One thing I can promise you though, is that this is his most exposing show yet: you have been warned!

Who wants a story that ties up in neat little bows?

And so, I will depart Edinburgh on a note of song, a song of poignancy and optimism. As the end of the festival approaches and goodbyes are in the air, I can whole heartedly recommend you do the same.

From the moment you enter the semi-dark studio to find an actor with an octopus instead of a face waiting for you in the car, Pomona is a strange experience, full of questions without easy answers. Who controls the city? Is it even possible to be a good person anymore? Where is Pomona, and what is it hiding?

When Ollie’s sister goes missing she meets the mysterious Mr Zeppo, on a ring road late at night. He tells her of the mysterious Pomona, a square of disused concrete with a gate at either end, a place where people are said to “disappear”. But once she’s opened the hypothetical box there’s no going back – fantasy and reality start to collide and hers is not the only life at stake when chaos surfaces and the true human cost revealed.

fantasy and reality start to collide…

Like the ring road, the plot loops dizzyingly as Ollie’s life becomes entwined with a clutch of disturbed and disturbing characters. It’s disorientating, at times hard to watch but an important, timely piece of contemporary writing brought to the Fringe by a young and engaging company.

Performances from HiveMCR, Manchester University Drama Society, are of an unwavering high quality. Mr Zeppo’s questionable sanity (he speaks uncomfortable truths but blends them with movie plots and his concerns about chicken nuggets) is brought to life with an infectious and sporadic energy in the performer’s wide, manic, blue eyes.

an infectious and sporadic energy

By contrast, Keaton (Lily Chapell) carries a quiet, but undeniable command, her performance tight and discipled. Yet hers too is all in the eyes, disturbingly cold, they barely flicker at the violence played out in front of them, yet they are paired with a voice that is curious and childlike. It’s a disconcerting combination from a highly versatile young performer.

a disconcerting combination from a highly versatile young performer.

The sound design is also excellent. Deep, dark industrial beats that contribute to the overall sense of heavy concrete slabs and deep, dark underground vaults. I would like to have heard more from this young sound designer, although the silence at the start as we all found a seat was disquieting enough as it was.

Pomona is a cautionary tale of our human responsibility, and our unwillingness to take it. Our unwillingness to see beyond ourselves, and our learned ability to avert our gaze from what we don’t want to see. The setting may be fictional, but it is only one step removed. There are Pomona’s everywhere in cities across the country.

The setting may be fictional, but it is only one step removed.

Pomona is a play worth waking up for (it’s got the morning slot) that should be a wake-up call to city dwellers everywhere. It is interaction with flesh and blood and not concrete that holds a city together, but as we know, and Pomona’s writer Alistair McDowall knows too, it’s just not that simple, not when there are monsters under the bed and around every corner.

Aug 22-25, The Space Triplex, Run Time: 70 minutes

]]>http://christinabulford.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=10700EdFringe: “Sometimes… it’s all about good timing” – You Only Live Forever – Assembly Studio 4http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1067
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1067#respondTue, 21 Aug 2018 15:31:16 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1067For Immy, finding eternal life, and love, was all about good timing. Sitting at the right Las Vegas roulette table and meeting the guy from the late-night science documentary carrying the elixir made of shark bits kind of good timing. She knocks it back over some roulette chips and eternal life is hers, whether she wanted it or not.

Sometimes finding the perfect Edinburgh show is also all about good timing, and sitting with damp eyes at the emotional climax of You Only Live Forever it’s certainly hit the spot.

Sometimes finding the perfect Edinburgh show is also all about good timing

You see, today is my last day of EdFringe and it’s been an emotional rollercoaster to say the least! Immy learns, from centuries of life, that it is only when we can see the finish point looming that we fully appreciate life in the moment. I don’t think at any point I lost my appreciation (I’ve only had 10 days – not centuries!), but I am certainly feeling extra gratefully and appreciative on this final day. And this manifests in being extra-sensitive to tender, emotional scenes it seems. Or maybe I just had something in my eye.

it is only when we can see the finish point looming that we fully appreciate life in the moment.

But hold up, I am making this about me. My reviews shouldn’t be about me, that would be like a show just being about the writer – right?

Well, funny that, because in You Only Live Forever the ego of the writer is precisely what makes this show so funny and unique (I know what you’re thinking – if only the same could be said of my review).

Roxy and Alice are a co-writing comedy match made in heaven. From the ideas box that’s never been opened (like every suggestion box since the dawn of time) to the rap that controversially got cut (and the song that didn’t!), they interrupt the course of the story to share their wisdom in self-consciously self-indulgent comedic interludes. Both threads could be shows in their own right, but together their matrimony is comedic bliss.

a co-writing comedy match made in heaven

Meanwhile, when they’re not dissecting the writing process, we are squeezed through seventy years of their character’s (Immy and Olga, named ingeniously because they are ‘immortal’ and ‘older’) marital bliss – not easy to do, as Roxy and Alice observe – to be honest we could have done with a clock to keep up! Their relationship is peppered with adorably childish visions of the future. There are flying cars of course, and books are luxury items found in specialist antique shops. Young or old, and the audience this afternoon is a very healthy mix of both, we all want to believe the best is yet to come.

we all want to believe the best is yet to come.

In short – indeed in just an hour – these two pack universal life truths into a hysterically funny, quirky and emotional package. Age is just a number. Love makes life worth living. Life, and festivals, can never last forever so make the most of it while you can (and see this show!).

]]>http://christinabulford.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=10670EdFringe: “Rises and falls but remains hopeful” – Sparks – Pleasancehttp://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1057
http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1057#respondMon, 20 Aug 2018 17:10:52 +0000http://christinabulford.co.uk/?p=1057“Nothing says grief play like a florescent badge”, a Sparks crew member hands me a bright pink one that screams “I AM ELECTRIC” on the way out. Sparks is a play about grief, but with a focus on life and not death and a bubbly (sometimes baroque) soundtrack, it’s grief done a little differently.

grief, done a little differently.

To get to grief there must first inevitably be death. It’s a fertile topic across the arts, and at the Fringe. As nobody likes to talk about it, consequently, naturally, we absolutely should. This year there is even a dedicated website and a hashtag, #DeathAtTheFringe. It’s run by Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief, who are working to make Scotland a place where there is more openness about death, dying and bereavement. So many struggle soundlessly, not knowing who to or how to get help.

What Sparks manages to do instead of focussing on the death itself, is highlight the loneliness that comes afterwards in a quietly devastating way. There’s no dramatic funeral scene, no black umbrellas, no tender loving goodbyes, just a dial tone late in the night, a wordless call to a phone that can no longer be connected. Meanwhile, they are not going to let us forget that life goes on.

quietly devastating

The poetry of the everyday is brought to loud and illustrious life through a beautiful soundtrack, which interweaves the duo performances. Anoushka Lucas plays the keys and sings, Jessica Butcher speaks – but they are the same person. I am yet to see two performers so intensely connected, so creatively in-synch; their concentration is mesmerising to watch and there is a evidently a very real, close bond between them.

Their concentration is mesmerising to watch

Jessica embraces the mornings, not haunted by lonely dials tones, in “Morning Comes Around”, a bright and sparky song punctuated with life’s big questions: “Can I put this jumper in the washing machine?”, amongst others. A new love is on the horizon, and the script toys with our expectations of this, leaning in to the fantasies and then batting them away to our comic satisfaction. Sparks brings to light the cruel truth, that grief rears its head at the most inconvenient of times, and as the sparks of new love flicker, Jess is reminded of altogether different sparks. The sparks in her mother’s head that saw her fizzle out.

The structure of the piece is expertly controlled so that it rises and falls but remains hopeful. Sparks is about finding ground, when its fallen away from beneath your feet. About focussing on the little things, like a blade of grass, taking the time for a bath. About finding your own answers to your questions and moving forward. About remembering you’re alive, you’re electric, that morning comes around.